A recent mod-mail from a new mixer asked politely if we could get the recipe thread stickied for more visibility. Since the recipe thread is already stickied, there was some confusion, but what he meant was this:

"Weekly Suggest a Recipe for My Flavors Thread."

It is already posted in the top and side bars. It's also got a link in the stickied "Read This Before Posting" page. There's not much more we can do to improve its visibility on a weekly or ongoing basis. But, it isn't getting much traffic these days, and that's the reason for this post.

A long, long time ago, I posted my puny little stash of flavors in that weekly thread several weeks in a row, repeatedly got no response, and was starting to get the sads. Maybe even close to giving up. Eventually, some kind soul suggested something that was actually pretty good and I vaped on that quite a while, while I worked on creating my own stuff. After I got a couple of years of experience I started making it a point to participate in that thread to "pay it forward." It was scary the first couple of times, because the last thing I wanted to do was cause someone to waste their ingredients on something they don't like, but confidence grows with positive feedback and often it would flow freely there.

Occasionally, people's gratitude would embarrass me and I'd respond by saying something about how there was no need to thank me, because I'm doing this for me. How the new mixer I try to help today could be the person who eventually goes on to create and share the best recipe I've ever tasted. If you're the selfish sort, think about that long game for a minute. It could happen.

Or they might get ignored and then discouraged, give up on mixing, maybe even give up on vaping and go back to smoking. You could be a hero, you never know.

When I started noticing that plenty of other mixers, of varying degrees of experience, were also starting to take time out of their days to participate there, I slacked off more and more and eventually stopped. I can't deny that my fundamental laziness played some part in that, but there was also another reason. Often people would skip over any list of flavors that had already gotten a response. That was good for spreading out the work and making sure everyone got a suggestion, but it caused me to think I needed to take a step back to make way for other voices. Again, I'm a lazy bastard, but also I wanted to give YOU, the other voices helping in the suggest a recipe thread, a chance to get more of what I got out of it for myself.

The Suggest a Recipe thread is a chance to sharpen your skills, if you let it. Sure, you could just pull something out of your ass and if you have any idea what you're doing it'll probably be decent. But you can also use it as an opportunity to research each of these ingredients and attempt to theorycraft the best possible recipes. What are some well-regarded recipes that use them and how did they use them? How have some of the flavors this noob blindly ordered been paired up successfully? What does the comment section of a flavor review suggest might be good sub for something someone is missing to make something others have enjoyed? Every time you do this kind of exercise, you're getting flavor-smarter. You're getting better and faster at making better things. This is probably the best reason I can give to get involved. Not just this week, but every week, in checking out the Suggest A Recipe thread. And not just on Fridays when it goes up, but later in the week, after more little stashes have been posted. Don't do it for them, do it for yourself.

Another reason: It can be fun, like Apexified's 1-2-3 game this week was fun. Don't ignore stashes that already have a response, suggest a competing recipe. Try to deduce from what OP has bought what they are most likely to enjoy, and prove that you're better at suggesting recipes than that other guy or gal. Don't hesitate to add to, subtract from, or otherwise improve on something that someone has already suggested and make the case for why what you're suggesting would be better. Give your suggested recipes very silly names. Tag people who you think might be able to help with a stash that's got you stumped and give them silly names. Whatever. Have fun with it, one way or another.

TL;DR Reminder that the "Weekly Suggest A Recipe for My Flavors" Thread exists.